December

by Phil Rickman

  is another world.

  She tried to turn her head away. She could feel her eyes widening. Her throat closed a couple of times when she tried to speak.

  And then the entity crumbled into a brown dust which settled upon the air and then clouded like a swarm of midges drawn to the candles. It made her want to cough, but her throat was locked.

  Tom Storey hadn't dissolved. Storey, looming over her, was an apparition of flesh and blood and sweat.

  Meryl's foot caught against one of the table legs. In desperation, she kicked off her shoe and used the foot to push herself backwards across the polished floorboards, away from the table.

  Away from that table. She could smell the blood in a foetid haze above her, could see in her mind the ruins of Sir Wilfrid's neck, slashed tubes protruding.

  'Here.'

  A big, red hand.

  Tom Storey offering to help her up. In his other hand the knife.

  She shrank back, trembling, snaking away on her bottom across the polished floor, feeling her tight black dress beginning to come apart.

  Managing, at last, to croak. 'What have you done?'

  At which, to her horror, Tom Storey giggled. 'Stone me. What have I done? Jeez.'

  'Look,' she whispered. 'I ... I didn't ... didn't see anything.'

  Thinking, I'm the only witness. He's got to kill me.

  'Don't give me that shit, lady, it's in your eyes. You seen everyfink.'

  'Please. Please don't. .

  'The old man,' Tom said, watching her squirm. 'You even seen the old man, yeah? You seen him just now, right?'

  'Please ... I didn't see anything.'

  Glancing quickly sideways to where the door was hanging open behind her. There was a good six yards between them now. If she could only reach the door ...

  Tom Storey was staring around the room in bewilderment. He beat the palm of his left hand against his forehead.

  Meryl had managed to slide another couple of feet before he looked at her again. Not much use; he knew what she was doing. He didn't come after her, but he was only a few strides away, only a pounce away.

  'I don't believe you,' he said. 'You seen the old man, dincher?'

  He half-turned. The knife dropped from his fingers.

  'Fuck you, lady,' he said. 'Fuck the lot of you.'

  Before the knife hit the floor, Meryl was up and stumbling for the doorway, her back to Tom Storey and the bodies at the dinner-table, knowing that when she started running she'd keep on running out of the main door, through the grounds and into the trees where he would never find her.

  In the doorway hands seized her from behind.

  Simon St John turned over in bed, and his companion slid softly to the carpet.

  For some time, his conscious mind blinking on and off, he'd been half-aware of a shifting of weight, a part of him wanting to lose it, needing the freedom to move.

  He'd been in and out of sleep, his throat vaguely sore, perhaps a cold coming on; each time he moved towards wakefulness it seemed more constricting than sleep and he burrowed back into the dark.

  Sleeping with the Bible.

  Sometimes with his arm around it; sometimes on his chest, across his legs, over his groin. Because it stopped dreams, those dreams.

  But not necessarily all dreams, and tonight, in his half-fever, he'd dreamt repeatedly of Isabel Pugh, whose life was lightless and whose company he'd spurned because he'd heard that tone of voice before from other lonely women in other parishes.

  In penance, he was pulling Isabel in her wheelchair to the top of the south-west tower, which had been rebuilt to match the one where the studio used to be. Gripping the chair, he was struggling backwards up the spiral staircase, sixty of them, he knew, but when he reached fifty and could see the sky above him he would immediately find himself at the bottom again, and Isabel was looking back over her shoulder at him, anxious and impatient. Come on, Simon, he's expecting us.

  God knew he was doing his best, but it took all his strength and demanded more. His arms hurt and his stomach hurt and the cumbersome chair was barely wide enough for the spiral - the metal scraping along the stone, with a horrible rending sound, causing red sparks to fly up, or was it flecks of blood from Isabel's arms, torn on the rough stones projecting from the wall?

  Twice Simon awoke in the middle of all this and struggled back into the dream because he knew that if he let go of it, the wheelchair would crash and tumble down the spiral stairs, a helter-skelter of death.

  Turning once more to his task, pain in his throat, turning over in bed, something sliding to the floor, and they were coming out, at the top of the tower, into the night, hands from above helping him with his burden.

  'I'll get you a drink.'

  'I don't want a drink.'

  'I'll get it. Where... ?'

  'It'll calm you. Brandy, I think. Top shelf.'

  'Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.'

  'Stop it, Meryl.'

  She just couldn't stop shivering. Enclosed in the plushest of the chairs, pushed close to the built-up drawing-room fire, and she couldn't feel any of her limbs, as if they'd all shivered away.

  'Come on, take a sip, the old remedies are the best, as you're always saying yourself.' Even the brandy felt cold. It lodged in her throat; she started to cough, doubled up.

  'I can't understand it. This is not her at all. This is just not Meryl. I'm really terribly sorry, this ...'

  'No, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. We should never have come. Tom has a... condition.'

  'Well, whatever it is, it can hardly be contagious, Shelley.'

  Through watering eyes, Meryl saw Shelley Storey shimmering in the haze around the fire. 'Oh, it can,' Shelley said. 'Believe me.'

  The whole world's gone completely mad,' Martin said. His polo shirt was as white as when she'd ironed it. Not a bloodstain on him.

  Martin.

  Martin in his drawing-room with his books and his panelled walls and his long curtains and the mellowness, the soft, buttery lamplight. She thought, Tom Storey's killed me, too, we're all here in spirit.

  A piece of ectoplasm floated towards her. She stared at it.

  'Take it,' Shelley said. 'It's a clean one.'

  Meryl accepted the tissue from Shelley to wipe her eyes.

  Shelley, too, was unstained, and her cream high-necked dress was untorn.

  'You're all here," Meryl said in wonder.

  'Except Sir Wilfrid and his lady,' said Martin. 'But let's not talk about him, cantankerous old sod.'

  Sir Wilfrid. Meryl sat up. 'Martin, but he's ... he's ... Where is he?'

  Someone laughed. 'He made an excuse and left.' It was Stephen Case, his pony-tail coming apart a little, but both his eyes tightly in his head. I think he thought Tom was going to murder him.'

  'To hell with Tulley.' Martin came over and knelt by Meryl's chair. 'It's you we're worried about. How do you feel?'

  'Strange,' Meryl said. 'A little bit strange.'

  'We should get a doctor. Which one's your doctor, Meryl, Perkins or Lefevre?'

  'No need for that, I'm not ill.'

  'Have you had any kind of... I don't know how to describe it... fit? Anything like that before?'

  Shelley said, 'Martin, I've seen ... things like this before. She'll be all right. She's right, no need for a doctor. Really.'

  Martin got to his feet looking, for the first time in Meryl's experience, entirely out of his depth. 'I think I need a drink.'

  'Lord above,' Meryl said. 'What happened here? What did I do? Mrs Storey, would you tell me, please?'

  Shelley said gently, 'You ... We heard you screaming before you came in. Do you remember that?'

  Meryl said nothing. She remembered too much.

  'You came in, you were pushing the trolley, and you just sort of froze. You kept staring at us - particularly at Sir Wilfrid, that was when he started getting annoyed. He seemed to think he'd been brought here to be made a fool of. You went a little ... hysterical. And then you had your black
out. Fainted.'

  Meryl became aware of Tom Storey standing behind his wife, hands plunged into his pockets, where she knew they were trembling. His face was still red and hot-looking. His bloodshot eyes came to rest on her.

  'Tell 'em, darlin'.'

  He didn't look dangerous any more, his eyes weren't bulging. He just looked unwell.

  'Go on ... Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you saw.'

  The eyes sorrowful now, bruised like a bloodhound's. He knew what she'd seen. How did he know? Only one way he could know: because he'd seen it too, including the grisly creature with the hole in his face whose manifestation had started the whole terrible cycle. Had Tom Storey killed them all in his imagination; was that what she'd seen?

  It was clear that none of the others had seen anything, except for her - and Storey, obviously - behaving very strangely. And whatever Tom had done, nobody was commenting on it, perhaps because, for him, this kind of behaviour wasn't so unusual.

  And, oh Lord, it wouldn't go away. She only had to look at Stephen Case to see him again with his mouth open and an eye hanging out. She was never going to be able to sleep again. She'd keep waking up in the night and feeling for Martin's blood on the pillow.

  And the Lady Bluefoot, the dear, gentle, eternally grieving Lady Bluefoot, her sanctum invaded by another presence which was dark and gross and oppressive and ...

  And brought in here by him.

  Tom Storey was still looking at her, mute appeal in his eyes, but no hope there. Whatever it was he had, it had clearly brought him nothing but anguish.

  'I really think,' said Martin, who knew about her and the Lady Bluefoot, who would smile wryly but never quite patronisingly, 'that if you thought you saw something, Meryl, you ought to enlighten us.'

  Meryl panicked and fought to conceal it, staring at the carpet, and then into the fire, not wanting to see any of them, especially Tom Storey, whose gaze she could feel like steady heat.

  I can't.

  'Please ... I didn't see anything. I just fainted. It was probably the cold in the hall after the warmth of the kitchen. I'm sorry to have put you all to any trouble or worry. I shall be fine now. Just fine. Really.'

  There was an unsatisfied silence. What was she supposed to say? I saw you all dead, butchered where you sat? Case's eye out? Lady Tulley's head lying casually on the table like some sort of novelty cruet?

  I can't. God help me, I just can't.

  The silence went on and on, Meryl slumped, staring into the fire, Martin watching her baffled. The silence went on until Tom Storey broke it.

  Tom said, leaden fatigue in his voice, 'You stupid, selfish bitch.'

  'Tom!' Outrage from Shelley, but it wasn't awfully convincing.

  'And you …' His wife was still kneeling by Meryl's chair, Tom towering over her like some flaking tenement block. 'You betrayed me, darlin'. You set me up. You brung me out here so this ...' jabbing a contemptuous thumb towards Case. '… this streak of piss ...'

  'Hang on ...' Case said.

  'Stay outa this, dickface ...'

  Tom turned slowly towards Meryl, looked her in the eyes, then back to Case, saying very deliberately,

  '... else I'll have your bleeding eyes out, won't I?'

  Meryl gasped.

  'Fought I could trust you,' Tom said to Shelley. 'You was the only person I fought I could truly trust. And you set me up. All this ...'

  He waved a hand towards the table. Meryl thought, nobody but me understands what he means. They all just think he's mentally unbalanced.

  '... is your fault. You said you understood. You never understood.'

  Shelley reached up for him. 'Tom, believe me ...'

  'Believe you,' Tom said, with sadness and contempt, 'is what I ain't never gonna do again, darlin'.'

  Martin said, 'Tom, listen to me for a moment. Shelley knew nothing ...'

  'And you,' said Tom. 'I been observing you. I been finking, what's this smarmy git after? He don't want more money. A seat on the board at TMM, maybe? Nah, I couldn't fathom it. I'm looking at you, I'm finking, what ... ? And all I seen in your eyes ...'

  Martin started to say something.

  '... is a big pair of tits,' Tom said.

  Martin stood there, mouth open. Probably, Meryl thought, the first time since childhood he's looked ridiculous and known it.

  'That it, mister?' Tom grinned savagely. 'That really it? Everyfink? My missus's tits?' He turned away. 'Pathetic, innit? Jeez.'

  He held out a hand to Shelley. 'Bag. Where's your bag?'

  'Tom, no ...'

  Tom said, 'I'm outa here.'

  'Please …'

  'You can stay. Don't let this spoil your glittering evening, darlin'. Stay as long as you want. This geezer'll put you up for the night, won'tcher, mate? Show him your jugs or summink. See, he's drooling already, the poor sod.'

  'Tom,' Shelley said, still on her knees. 'We have to talk about this.'

  She's actually a good woman, Meryl thought. She's been through a lot of grief. But he's right. She doesn't understand and she never will.

  Tom held out a hand to Shelley as if to help her up.

  Shelley didn't move.

  'Car keys,' Tom said, palm open, fingers stiff.

  Simon stood panting at the top of the spiral, where it came out on to a square stone platform, no more than fifteen feet in diameter, a wall around it, broken down in places, missing altogether in others, stepping off points into the shaft of the night.

  A waning moon silvered the cold, wet land and the arcades of archways and the clumps of fallen masonry on the ground, fifty feet below. It was very still.

  Simon.

  He looked up. Two black-robed monks were there. One spoke in a guttural whisper, in a language he felt he ought to understand but didn't. French? Latin? It didn't matter, the message was clear.

  Welcome back.

  Simon felt a crown of cold air around his head. Knew it had been shaven. Knew he, too, was wearing a monk's habit, rough and hairy.

  The other monks were looking down at the woman in the wheelchair. 'I brought her,' Simon said.

  Isabel said, 'No, you didn't. Helped me up the steps was all you did. I came because I wanted to. I came to be healed.'

  She had on a white towelling bathrobe, large silver earrings and a silver necklace with a locket. 'Don't worry,' she said to Simon. 'You won't need to help me down. I'll be able to walk, won't I?'

  Or fly. One of the monks giggled.

  Simon stepped away from the wheelchair. Isabel sat alone in the centre of the platform. 'When you're ready.'

  Do it.

  Simon said, 'Please, no.'

  The monk smiled. Simon didn't know how he knew this, because the monk had no face. But the monk smiled and pulled on the loose cord of hemp around his waist.

  Simon drew breath.

  The cord fell to the stone around the monk's leather boots.

  The robe parted, and the monk's dark penis reared glistening into the cold moonlight.

  Simon shivered.

  Isabel turned her head and looked into his face. He felt his eyes glaze and harden. He took hold of the handles of the wheelchair.

  Isabel said, 'Simon?'

  Her voice was distant, a little croaky, a voice on the end of a telephone. He had heard voices like this before, the lonely voices of other women in other parishes.

  Her eyes widened. She gave a little sob.

  'I'm sorry,' he said coldly.

  He pushed the wheelchair easily to the gap at the edge of the tower, where the perimeter wall had been. Glancing back at the naked, grinning monk, he gave it a final little prod and watched it vanish. Stood on the edge and waited until he heard it smashing into the rubble fifty feet below with a noise like a cutlery drawer being emptied.

  And then he took off his robe, went down on his knees and began to crawl across the stone towards the monk.

  Shelley couldn't move. Her bag was on a Queen Anne sort of' coffee table under the window where she'd put it down to
bring a chair close to the fire for Meryl.

  She didn't dare look at it, so she carried on looking at Tom, right into his creased-up eyes, heavy with a sense of betrayal.

  Please, honey, please.

  Sometimes he would hear her silent appeals clearer than if she'd spoken. Sometimes, like tonight, he could transmit his unease to her, and her perception of atmosphere would be heightened and change and she would know something was happening ... and believe that she was somehow sharing his burden.

  'Keys,' Tom said.

  He looked old. Stricken and ravaged. His moustache was almost white now. He was only forty-seven, barely middle-aged these days.

  Shelley said, 'Let me drive you home, Tom."

  'Keys. I'll spell it out. I ain't going nowhere wiv you. And I ain't walking.'

  She remembered him saying, on the way here, I hate these little country lanes. All country lanes, for Tom, were haunted by the clash of metal and the roar of flames. Shelley knew exactly what it had been like; she'd made Dave Reilly tell her about it, every horrifying detail.

  Including the bit about Tom demanding car keys from Russell Hornby, the producer, before driving off in the old Land Rover which would destroy Deborah.

  What time was it now? A long time after midnight, that was certain. Nearly that time. They should have been home by now, safe in bed.

  Shelley rallied. 'You're not having the keys, Tom.'

  Don t make me angry,' Tom said.

  Shelley didn't move.

  But someone else did.

  'Look.' The awful Stephen Case had wandered over. 'Perhaps I can resolve this. Tom and I need to do some talking about one thing and another. Tom, why don't you come over to my hotel in Stroud? Be very quiet. We can talk, and I can book you a room for the night, what's left of it. No problem. I've got a bottle of Chivas Regal in the car ...'

  Oh God. Shelley closed her eyes on Tom's disbelief.

  'Why you fink I should wanna talk to you?'

  'Because, Tom, to be blunt,' Case said, 'I've got the Abbey tapes. I'd like to know more about them and you'd probably like to know how I got hold of them.'